By Frank Gormlie
In my book, The May 1970 Rebellion – about the height of the anti-Vietnam war movement, I discuss “outside agitators.” Here’s an excerpt:
From college administrators, mayors, local politicians and governors to the President of the United States, the real instigators of all the violence and turmoil were the outside agitators, the Weathermen, professional instigators and rioters.
For example, Kentucky Governor Louie Nunn blamed “outside agitators” and “professionals” for the disturbances at the University of Kentucky. At Ohio University Athens and at the University of Minnesota in Duluth, outside agitators were blamed for the violence.
Read the full article...
The May Rebellion of 1970: It Hastened the early withdrawal from Cambodia and the End of the Vietnam War
By Frank Gormlie
The month of May 1970 was the very height of the anti-Vietnam war movement — and I just wrote an entire book about that fateful month, The May 1970 Rebellion. Here, then, is an excerpt from an earlier edit.
The May Rebellion changed America and changed American politics forever – both in the immediate sense and over the ensuing decades.
The historically unparalleled “100-a-day new campus protests that occurred during the four days following the student fatalities at Kent State” led to the creation of the largest student strike in American history.
It hastened the early withdrawal of the US military from Cambodia and was instrumental in forcing the end of the Vietnam war.
Neil Sheehan in A Bright Shining Lie, his prize-winning Vietnam War history, wrote that “the bonfire of protest” ignited by Nixon’s “incursion” into Cambodia was so great that the White House “had no choice but to accelerate the withdrawal” of U.S. troops from the region. Unfortunately, the pace of American withdrawal took another five years, causing further bloodshed among the Vietnamese, who overall suffered an estimated 3 million civilian and military deaths.
May 1970 was the high-water mark of the greatest anti-war movement in American history, and its demands for peace and an end to the war worked objectively to support Vietnamese liberation and to a great strengthening of the anti-imperialist movement.
Read the full article...
There’s a movement afoot to have the San Diego County Grand Jury investigate the city of San Diego’s planning process, and it just recently picked up support from the La Jolla Community Planning Association.
The idea for such an investigation started with a complaint from the Community Planners Committee, which meets monthly and is composed of the leaders of community planning groups across the city. (OB Planning Board head Andrea Schlegeter chairs the CPC.)
CPC has asked the planning groups to “endorse a request for an investigation of the San Diego city Planning Department, Development Services Department and reporting structures that have led to improper project classifications, improper legislation of municipal code and non-compliant communications.”
At their May 2 meeting, the La Jolla Community Planning Association gave its unanimous support to the proposed investigation.
Read the full article...
By Arturo Castañares / La Prensa / May 2, 2024
San Diego State University and the California State University Chancellor’s office now claim there are no public records related to a 2022 proposal from a private developer to build a new sports arena at no expense to taxpayers within the SDSU West campus in Mission Valley, although a term sheet was reviewed in mid-2022.
SDSU President Adela de la Torre, several University officials, and two private businessmen flew to Texas on a private jet in May 2022 to tour a similar sports arena built at the University of Texas at Austin’s campus yet there are no emails, text messages, or documents to detail the opportunity that was the reason for the high-level trip.
The trip came after discussions with Oak View Group, a Denver-based venue developer and operator that financed the then-new $345 million Moody Center in Austin under a deal that did not require any public taxpayer dollars but includes a profit-sharing deal with UTA that will provide millions of dollars to the University over the lifespan of the arena.
Read the full article...
By Chris Lindahl / Patch San Diego / May 5, 2024
From automatic service charges to vague “living wage” fees, California restaurants have increasingly been tacking on extra costs to diners’ bills in recent years, much to customers’ chagrin. But starting later this year, that practice will become illegal — the menu price (plus tax) is all you’ll have to pay.
Signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October and set to take effect July 1, SB 478 will prohibit hidden fees, defined by state officials as fees in which a seller uses an artificially low advertised price to attract a customer, disclosing additional required fees in fine print or tacking on unavoidable charges later in the buying process.
Read the full article...
By Jared Aarons / ABC10News / May 02, 2024
By Jared Aarons / ABC10 / May 02, 2024
A team of researchers from UC San Diego has come up with a unique solution to help with the world’s plastic problem.
They created a form of plastic that can basically recycle itself.
Dr. Adam Feist and Professor Jon Pokorski combined traditional polyurethane with a microbial spore to create plastic that can break down in compost or any other natural environment in around 5 months.
They published a paper this week in Nature Communications detailing their process and results.
“There are some studies that show, of the millions, trillions of microbes out there, some can eat the plastic itself,” says Feist. “So we were saying if we combine them together, what would happen? And how can that better facilitate that massive problem we have with polymers everywhere?”
Read the full article...